Important cultural property

An unsigned katana attributed to Akihiro, a Nanbokucho-period Sagami smith and master of the hitatsura temper. An Important Cultural Property held in Osaka.

An unsigned katana attributed to Kyoto master Rai Kuniyuki, held privately in Osaka. We explain how a Kamakura blade lost its signature and where to see his swords.

A wide, unsigned katana attributed to the Kamakura smith Sadamune, now an Important Cultural Property in Osaka. Its broad form earned the byname Habahiro.

Discover the Murakumo-Gō, an Important Cultural Property attributed to the legendary Nanbokuchō-period swordsmith Gō Yoshihiro. Named by Toyotomi Hideyoshi for the cloud-like nie crystals along its blade, this celebrated katana passed through the Maeda clan, Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, and the Yanagisawa family.

Called the Masamune of Osaka for his steel's clarity, Inoue Shinkai forged this Important Cultural Property in 1676, its tang bearing the imperial chrysanthemum.

Discover the Important Cultural Property katana inscribed 'Yamashiro Daijō Fujiwara Kunikane / An Auspicious Day in the Eighth Month of Kan'ei 5' (1628), held privately in Osaka. Forged by the first-generation Sendai Kunikane—official swordsmith of Date Masamune—just one year after he received his court title, this masterpiece revived the ancient Yamato Hōshō tradition of straight-grain forging.

Designated as an Important Art Object, this katana was forged in 1614 by the first-generation Echizen Yasutsugu, official swordsmith to the Tokugawa shogunate, using imported nanban iron in Edo. A pioneering example of foreign iron in Japanese swordsmithing and a historically significant blade created in the year of the Siege of Osaka Castle.

Discover the Excavated Items from the Yokoi Temple Ruins in Yamato Province, an Important Cultural Property of Japan housed at the Osaka Museum of History. Unearthed from a long-vanished Nara-period temple in Nara City, the collection includes a gilt-bronze standing Bodhisattva, a Tang-influenced mountain-cloud double luan-bird mirror, ancient bronze coins, and other ritual metalwork that vividly evoke eighth-century Buddhist devotion.

A wakizashi dated 1586 by Horikawa Kunihiro, the smith later called the founder of Japan's new sword era. An early work, now an Important Cultural Property in Osaka.

The Colored-Picture Decorated Paper, Ink-Written Kanfugen-kyo (Fragment / Fan-Shaped Sutra) is a single surviving leaf of the celebrated Senmen Hokekyo Sasshi, originally a ten-volume fan-shaped sutra booklet from late Heian Japan. Layered with mica, gold and silver leaf, yamato-e painting, and elegant ink calligraphy, it is now an Important Cultural Property held by the Fujita Museum in Osaka.

Held in Osaka Prefecture, this Important Cultural Property is a black-ink drawing on paper that depicts both the layout of a Buddhist goma fire-ritual altar and the thirty-seven principal deities of the Diamond Realm Mandala rendered as their symbolic samaya emblems. Transmitted within the lineage of the great pilgrim-monk Chishō Daishi Enchin (814–891), it offers a rare window into the visual language of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism.

Seventy-six fusuma panels by Kano school artists from the early 17th century adorn four rooms of Daian-ji Temple's Main Hall in Sakai City, Osaka. Designated as an Important Cultural Property, these gold-ground polychrome and ink paintings are the sole surviving barrier paintings from Sakai — once one of Japan's wealthiest trading cities. The collection includes the legendary 'Pine with Added Branch' featured in prewar Japanese textbooks.

In an Osaka museum, this pair of Momoyama folding screens paints Europeans arriving by ship and Christian worship on gold leaf. It opens only in May and November.

Discover the Usa-gū Shinryō Ōkagami, an Important Cultural Property and the sole surviving Kamakura-period manuscript documenting the sacred estates of Usa Jingū, the head shrine of over 44,000 Hachiman shrines across Japan.

An Important Cultural Property held by a private owner in Oita Prefecture, this hanging-scroll fragment is one section of the celebrated Satake-bon Sanjurokkasen-e — a 13th-century Kamakura-period scroll widely regarded as the finest surviving example of poet-portrait painting in Japan. Traditionally attributed in painting to Fujiwara no Nobuzane and in calligraphy to Gokyogoku Yoshitsune, the fragment depicts the Heian poet Fujiwara no Kanesuke (Tsutsumi Chunagon), great-grandfather of Genji author Murasaki Shikibu. It is one of 37 sections created when the original handscroll was famously divided in 1919, an event known as the Emaki Setsudan. This article guides visitors through the work's artistic significance, its remarkable scattering, and the cultural attractions of Oita that surround it.

The Miura Baien Manuscripts, designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan, comprise 30 categories of autograph manuscripts (212 volumes) and four personal artifacts belonging to the Edo-period philosopher Miura Baien (1723–1789). Preserved in Kunisaki City, Oita Prefecture, these documents record his original philosophical system known as Jōrigaku (Study of Natural Order), which anticipated Western dialectical philosophy. The collection is displayed at the Miura Baien Museum alongside his former residence, a National Historic Site.

Discover the Essel Telegraaf, the only surviving domestically-made telegraph from Japan's Edo period. Housed at Isahaya Museum of Art & History in Nagasaki Prefecture, this Important Cultural Property reveals how late-Edo innovators adapted Dutch technology.

Discover the Tachi inscribed Naminohira Ieyasu, a Kamakura-period Important Cultural Property crafted by Japan's longest-lived sword school, the Satsuma Naminohira lineage. This rare 67.5 cm blade, designated in 1955, preserves the Yamato tradition through its tight ko-itame hada and disciplined thin suguha temper line.

Preserved in Tsushima City, Nagasaki, the Chōsen-koku Kokushin are three Joseon-dynasty appointment documents issued in 1477, 1482, and 1503 to Japanese mariners connected with the Sōda clan of medieval Tsushima. Designated an Important Cultural Property in 1974, they are the oldest substantial set of Joseon appointment letters surviving in Japan and a first-class source for understanding the diplomacy that transformed pirates into licensed traders.

Held privately in Nagano, this unsigned 70-centimeter katana is attributed to the Nanbokucho Hasebe school, the Kyoto line behind the famed Heshikiri Hasebe.